Bloody hell. Would rather have McCullum ****ed right off than not have Taylor.

Everyone would. Can't NZ cricket just buy Hesson and McCullum a couple tickets to holiday at some romantic resort for the next couple of months to allow Ross Taylor to take his team to play some tough Test cricket in SA.

If this is true...I almost hope we do get smashed by SA. Because it would be the most stupid, petty, moronic, gormless, childish, gutless, short-sighted, self-destructive bit of administration in NZC history, an organisation that already has a gold medal in such events.

Seriously, if this is true then any remote chance of a surprise in SA is gone now. The common thread in New Zealand's 4 test match victories over the past 5 years has been Taylor making runs. Taylor averages just under 70 in matches NZ have won (not counting Bangladesh), scoring 2 centuries and 4 50's. You'd think NZC would value a player like that, but then what do I know? By comparison, in the same 4 matches, McCullum averaged under 25.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when New Zealand suffers two hefty defeats in SA. McCullum and Hesson have done themselves no favours by doing this in such an unsavoury way. The public (as recent internet polls have shown) are very much against them, and only strong performances will placate them. Wouldn't be surprised to hear McCullum get booed every time he comes out to bat this summer.

From a purely selfish POV, I'm hoping like hell the likes of a Martin Crowe gets in Taylor's ear about not making the rash decision of not touring at all. Crowe was of course in a similar situation many years back with Rutherford and then decided to just concentrate on being the best test batsman he could be. One could hardly blame Taylor if he does spit the dummy, but I'm hoping sanity prevails and at the very least we have our best batsman playing in SA.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when New Zealand suffers two hefty defeats in SA. McCullum and Hesson have done themselves no favours by doing this in such an unsavoury way. The public (as recent internet polls have shown) are very much against them, and only strong performances will placate them. Wouldn't be surprised to hear McCullum get booed every time he comes out to bat this summer.

Problem is even if we do suffer two hefty defeats, Hesson & NZ cricket will simply claim they played the best team in the world in their own backyard, so one couldn't expect anything else.

I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum... And I'm all out of bubblegum.

Posts

16,219

Originally Posted by Zinzan

Problem is even if we do suffer two hefty defeats, Hesson & NZ cricket will simply claim they played the best team in the world in their own backyard, so one couldn't expect anything else.

They couldn't claim that if Taylor doesn't end up touring. What odds on the SOS going out to Jesse Ryder if Taylor makes himself unavailable?

>>>>>>WHHOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHH>>>>>>Fascist Dictator of the Heath Davis Appreciation SocietySupporting Petone's Finest since the very start - Iain O'Brien
Also Supporting the All Time #1 Batsman of All Time Ever - Jacques Kallis and the much maligned Peter Siddle.